Orange would become a model city home for 55,000 people and a thriving commercial area.

There'd be a centre of new industry on the eastern and northern boundaries boosting the city's economy by millions of dollars and providing a boom in jobs.

But it all went up in smoke when new premier Neville Wran gave it the heave-ho in favour of Albury-Wodonga.

In the meantime Dubbo wasn't happy at Orange Bathurst getting all the attention and made its concerns known to the government so the following month in November 1972 Minister for Lands Tom Lewis announced a new open range zoo on crown land known as the Dubbo State Forest.

Even that didn't pacify the Hub of the West with a Daily Liberal editorial whinging Orange Bathurst was to be extensively developed while "we're only getting a few animals in a paddock...".

Well the growth centre has long gone while 'the few animals in a paddock' has become one of NSWs best attractions with 250,000 visitors a year.

And the zoo plays a vital role in national and international programs for rare and endangered species.

So who was the winner out of all this?

Our defunct growth centre or Dubbo's 'few animals in a paddock'..?

Orange, Cabonne and Blayney councils are combining to form an alliance to oversee sharing resources, services and information

Orange mayor Reg Kidd says the alliance could lead to cost savings on building roads and infrastructure.

It's the next best thing to a boundary change or amalgamation so the naive people who believed last week's light-hearted comment about toll gates can rest easy.

The Telegraph had a page 3 'scoop' this week about NASA saying there's really 13 constellations in the original zodiac and that changes your signs.

Readers might remember this column back in January 2017 brought that news to you explaining that when the Babylonians drew up a plan for the zodiac to correspond with the months of year, they already had a 12-month calendar so they left Ophiuchus out.

As well as that, the earth's axis has changed position since Babylonian times, meaning it doesn't point in the same direction it did 3,000 years ago. So the 'new' dates for the 13 signs include Capricorn that was originally December 22 until January 20 becoming January 20 until February 16.

The date changes go right through the zodiac to include Ophiuchus from November 29 to December 17. Astrology isn't real science like astronomy. Take any changes with a grain of salt.

A Millthorpe farmer hired a new labourer and sent him down the back paddock to dig eight post holes. That afternoon the farmer drove out in his four-wheel-drive to look at the work and found the new bloke lying under a tree drinking a tinnie.

"Hey, I asked you to dig eight holes and there's only six," he says.

"Well boss," says the new hand taking another swig from the tinnie. "I dug eight so some bugger must have stolen the other two."